Toxic Masculinity on the London Stage, 1600–1610

Anthony Archdeacon

$112

Hardback

Forthcoming
Pre-Order now

QTY:

English

Routledge
01 July 2025

Theatre Studies; Literary theory; Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800; Literary studies: plays & playwrights; Gender studies: men

Series: Routledge Focus on Literature

The idea of toxic masculinity might feel like a very modern, even twenty-first century notion, but similar concerns about male behaviour, also often characterised in terms of poisons and poisoning, can be identified in the literature of 400 hundred years ago, not only in Shakespeare’s Othello and The Winter’s Tale but also lesser-known plays that were popular on the London stage in the 1600s. Poison-related tropes, and the recurrent plot device of a man trying to poison a woman, expressed complex and sometimes contradictory attitudes towards socially unacceptable male behaviour. These plays depict the early modern male as both poisoned and poisoner – poisoned by inherited misogynistic ideas and attitudes, and poisoner of women, both literally and metaphorically. Seeing them as enacting problematic situations and raising difficult questions rather than simply offering the moral certitudes of Christianity or the prescriptions of contemporary conduct book, the book points to these plays as evidence of disquiet and anxieties to which we can still easily relate today. The fact that some plays responded to real-life events such as familicide is an indicator of this socially responsible role of the theatre, engaging its audience in current issues and controversies. The use of the poison theme in relation to male violence and misogyny shows that the early modern theatre was raising awareness of the same problems that are identified as toxic masculinity today.

By: Anthony Archdeacon
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 216mm, Width: 138mm,
Weight: 453g
ISBN: 9781032890449
ISBN 10: 1032890444
Series: Routledge Focus on Literature
Pages: 144
Publication Date: 01 July 2025
Audience: College/higher education , Primary
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Anthony Archdeacon has an MPhil in medieval literature from the University of Cambridge and a PhD in renaissance literature from the University of Southampton.